Sweet Dreams, Poor Souls
by ValienteCampion
Summary: The Sandman provides sweet dreams for children and some adults across the whole world. He also gives a good night's rest to his fellow Guardians. Though the quietest, Sandy knows more about each Guardian than any of the others. He gets to learn what each of them went through to become Guardians in the first place.
1. Toothiana

The Sandman had his share of scary dreams. Being able to see the dreams of every creature on earth will do that. Sometimes, like now, he wished there were some things he couldn't see.

He was hovering beside the bed of a very ill Tooth Fairy. She had been out in the cold a few weeks prior and had contracted the flu. She was getting better but had started having fever dreams. This time, it was a particularly bad one.

Sandy used his golden dust to see into her mind and find out what was making her grimace and twist up her blanket. An image of a woman who looked quite a bit like Tooth appeared in the sand. She was talking to a younger Tooth.

_Yes, Dear, of course I will help you mend it._

She held up a torn dress and examined it.

_It will only take a few minutes._

The dream shifted to another scene. Tooth was holding the dress, which was still torn. The older woman was stirring a pot of water furiously.

_Got to be sure it's perfect for Papa._

The young Tooth was crying as she said, _Mama, Papa is gone, he's dead._

Sandy decided that was enough. He threw a softball sized mound of sand into the sleeping Tooth's face. It burst into glittering clouds. Tooth flinched momentarily, then her face relaxed and her grip on the blanket loosened. Glowing images of perfect teeth and smiling faces danced above her head.

Sandy sighed. He hated seeing his friends in pain, whether it be physical or emotional. It made sense that Tooth's mother had memory problems. That explained why Tooth had become the Guardian of Memories.

He turned to leave out the window he had flown in through. He still had several spots in Southeast Asia to visit before it was too late at night. Glancing back briefly to make sure she would be alright, Sandy took off in the starry spread of the sky. He would have to wait until morning came to see if Tooth got a good rest. Thinking about seeing her again, he slapped himself in the face when he remembered why he had gone to her palace in the first place. He had volunteered to give her the medicine she needed on his route in Asia. He performed a quick turnaround and skidded back into her room.

To his relief, she hadn't suddenly died in her sleep as a result of his forgetfulness. He smiled to himself, silently chuckling at his panic. He set the small vial of syrupy blue medicine on Tooth's nightstand. She was still deeply entranced in the spectacular dream Sandy's magic provided. He inaudibly laughed again. He really enjoyed seeing his friends happy.

Tooth recovered three days later. She was wide-eyed and stressed when she finally became coherent enough to process the fact that she had been out of commission for eight days straight.

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed to the four guardians and the platoon of concerned fairies behind them, "What about all the teeth? All those children-!"

"Relax, Tooth," Bunny held a paw up to halt her hysteria, "I took care of that for ya."

"Really?! You made sure every tooth was categorized properly? And you got all of them?"

"Yeah, I did," Bunny gestured to the horde of magical beings behind him, "Ya don' 'ave much faith in ya little ones, ay?"

Tooth blanked. She looked between the pooka and her fairies. Slowly, her shoulders drooped and she calmed down.

"You gave big scare to all us," North said, "Thought maybe you would be asleep for weeks."

"I'm really sorry about all that snow in Vermont," Jack sheepishly apologized. He was wearing his hood and keeping his staff between himself and Tooth (or maybe it was Bunny) as if it could shield him.

Again, Tooth was speechless. It took her a full three seconds to remember what the winter spirit was talking about, "Oh! Don't worry about that! It is winter, after all, Jack. It would be a little strange if they got no snow at all."

Jack smiled.

Bunny cut off Tooth's attempt to get out of the bed, "Neh-ah, ya stayin' there."

"Wh-" her question was also interrupted by a sudden clench in her stomach, "Ouch!" she grunted.

"Illness, dehydration, and the medicine make ya sore," Bunny passed her a glass of water with a half glare that said she had better drink it.

She took the cup and downed the water gratefully before asking, "When will I actually be better?"

"This evenin' or t'morrow," Bunny said.

Tooth whined, "But there's so much I have to do!"

"Is alright," North reassured her, "Bunny has been making certain all is well with tooth fairy business. If it helps, Jack could-"

"No!"

Jack threw up his hands in mock offense at her response, "Well jeez!"

Sandy watched them quietly. He was tired from his trip around the world to check all of his routes. Seeing his friends tease and help each other reminded him that they were more than friends at this point. They were a family.


	2. E Aster Bunnymund

Christmas had come and gone once again. The spirit of the holiday was still fresh in the minds of all the children who celebrated it, making Sandy's job so much easier. Good dreams happened naturally when kids were happy, no dream sand required. Because of this, Sandy got to retire early and spend some more time with his friends at the North Pole.

Not surprisingly, everything was in blissful, celebratory disarray when he got there. The yetis were chugging eggnog like it wouldn't keep, the elves were running wild with wrapping paper, and North and Jack were engaged in the most intense staring contest of all time. Sandy shook his head as he approached the candy cane striped table the two guardians were seated at. Both of them looked like they'd had twelve too many rounds of Santa's specially brewed not-exactly-eggnog.

"Sandy!" Tooth flitted into the room carrying a plate of cookies. She handed them one by one to each of her sixteen fairies that had come with her. She then zipped over to Sandy and squeezed him in a tight hug.

Sandy threw up an image of an oxygen mask to tell her she was choking him and he needed air. Tooth backed off, apologizing rather hazily and started chirping to her fairies about something related to dental hygiene.

"You're never gonna win, Old Man," Jack hiccuped and folded his arms in front of him. He was swaying.

"That is what you think," North was squinting, his eyes were watering from keeping them open for so long.

Sandy watched expectantly. A bit like a tennis match, he looked back and forth between the drunks. He was impressed how Jack was able to hiccup without closing his eyes or falling out of his chair. North was flushed, but he was three times the size of a normal man. He didn't seem fazed by the...one, two, three... twenty-three empty shot glasses at his end of the stripey table. Sandy felt his jaw drop when he counted them. The Guardians were certainly going to sleep hard tonight.

_Wait a minute..._ Sandy looked around. He didn't see a pooka in the chaotic mix. He groaned internally, hoping that Bunny hadn't gone off by himself to work or be antisocial. He understood that some people were a bit introverted and needed space at times, but it was Christmas!

Sandy left the noisy party room and went to explore the rest of North's factory. Maybe he would find Bunny hidden in a quiet corner with a sharpening kit...or a book. He found a staircase and climbed up it. He wasn't sure exactly where he was going. He smiled to himself, thinking about how he could never find Bunny unless he was wandering around aimlessly, hoping but not sure where to go.

That's when he found himself in their usual meeting place. The fire was lit, all the chairs were pulled closer to it, and the only light came from the hearth. It was the perfect place to take a nap. Sandy floated over to the chairs, intending to just sit down for a little while. He then saw who he had been looking for. Bunny was curled into a ball on the seat of one of the chairs. It was mildly amusing to Sandy because it made the pooka look like a kitten.

Sandy watched him for a moment, making sure he himself made no sounds to wake him. Deciding his friend was deeply asleep, Sandy hopped into an armchair across from him. Doing so made a small creaking noise that caused one of Bunny's ears to stand up. Sandy froze, staring. After listening for a moment, Bunny relaxed again. Sandy quietly adjusted himself and settled down for a quick nap.

He wasn't sure what woke him when he opened his eyes around twenty minutes later. Everything looked the same, the fire, the chairs. Sandy examined the room but didn't find anything that could have disturbed him. He then looked to where Bunny was. He frowned. There was something wrong with Bunny.

He jumped out of the chair and landed on the floor loudly. His noise-making didn't alarm even one of Bunny's ears. Actually, what made Sandy think there was something wrong was that Bunny wasn't moving anything at all. Normally he would fidget, even in his sleep.

As Sandy nervously approached him, he could see that he was tense. He was clenching his middle, head down, knees up. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

Sandy didn't have to use his sand to know what nightmare Bunny was having. He had seen it once before when Bunny had overworked himself and passed out for two days. It was a horrific retelling of the day Bunny had died.

Wincing, Sandy reached out a handful of sparkling powder to sprinkle over his friend's head. He didn't know much about Bunny's life before becoming a Guardian but he did know that it wasn't easy by any means.

A few seconds passed before the dream sand began to take effect. Bunny loosened his grip on his abdomen and slightly uncurled. His face softened, making Sandy smile.

It wasn't often the Guardian of Hope needed some hope returned. Sandy was glad he was there to give it.


	3. Nikolas North

Sitting on a roof in downtown Tokyo, Sandy was watching the midnight traffic crawl along the crowded streets below. Seeing all those people out at such a late hour made him think about how they ought to be in bed. He had been around longer than most folks, so he knew what was generally best for the human resting cycle. Staying up, working through the night, and then waking up in the middle of the day was not how humans were meant to operate. It made him a little sad to think how tired they all must feel.

He took in a deep, motivational breath and slid off the rooftop. There were people who knew better that were sleeping and needed good dreams.

He made a full twenty feet away from the roof before a bright, blinding ray of moonlight focused directly into his eyes. He screeched to a halt in the middle of the clouds, throwing both hands over his face. The laser beam of silver light swung away from him and pointed to the north.

Sandy lowered his hands and gazed after it.

_North... North? Oh! North!_

He sped off in the direction of the north pole. His dream sand got him there fairly quickly, quick enough to rival the sleigh. He spotted Santa's factory nestled in the snowy dunes of the iceberg. Most of the lights were out. The yetis were milling about, casually working or playing catch with massive snowballs. The elves, as always, were finding ways to cause a ruckus. North himself was nowhere to be seen outside the building.

Sandy skidded into the lobby, wondering what could be urgent enough that the Man in the Moon had gotten involved. He got his answer as Phil thundered up to him, yelling in his indiscernible language.

A question mark popped up as the yeti continued to ramble. Sandy eventually made enough symbols to get him to calm down and try explaining in a way he could understand.

Through the barriers of communication, Phil was able to get Sandy to understand that North had been locked in his office for the entire day and had been shouting randomly. Nothing the big man said made any sense to those outside.

Sandy said, "Thank you," as best he could to Phil before floating up the stairs to North's office. The door was locked but one magically formed key overcame that obstacle. Sandy peered inside the room. The train wasn't running, which was his first clue that something was very, very wrong. There were no sounds of tinkering or carving. Looking further, Sandy saw that North was sitting in his chair and facing away from the door.

Suddenly, a very deep melody vibrated the wooden structure, echoing gorgeously in the perfect acoustics of the office.

"Oh, my father told me, Son don't fill your head with dreams... Nothing good ever came from a man what did no work... Keep your head down, don't cause a fuss... Oh, my father told me to never fly..."

Sandy cringed at the lyrics. It wasn't a song that North had come up with. It was a folk song from a very long time ago. He had heard it in his lifetime, he had heard Bunny singing the same poem to a different tune, and even Tooth had been humming it after sorting through teeth in her archives. What mattered was that North never sang it. He always had a happier, more hopeful or inspiring message to sing about.

He started walking towards North to get him out of this depressive mood when the bass took on another verse.

"She says, boy, listen, imagination is for the wicked... we live here in life and will leave in death... while you're walking, you'd better be talking about things that matter... Oh, my mother told me to never fly..."

Sandy tapped him on the elbow.

North jumped slightly, but settled again without hesitation, "_Preevet, _Sandy," he said, smiling softly, "I know, I am worrying everyone. I will be alright. Simply need time to myself. Have not been sleeping because of bad memories."

Sandy offered him a ball of dream sand.

North shook his head, "_Nyet_, I not need anymore. Bad dream is over. Only need more cookies, yes?"

Sandy raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side.

"Bah. Fine, you have won," North rolled his eyes, "Was about Elizaveta. You guess? You are right, of course. She was most miserable woman in all of world. Nothing ever made her happy, nothing! I try, but never manage to make her smile."

Sandy nodded. He had heard this story before. Granted, North had been drunk and slurring eleven-twelfths of his words while precariously hanging from a balcony. Sandy had caught the general idea of the tale while he carefully maneuvered the man to the ground.

"She was beautiful, yes, I love her. But she could be mean when she wanted, like bear."

North sighed and shook his head. He looked to Sandy who was standing by, waiting for him to continue.

"This is enough, yes?" North stood and straightened his coat, "_Bal'shoye spasiba, _you are miracle worker, Sandy!"

Sandy smiled. He wasn't sure what he did other than stand there. He was glad that it helped even if he didn't know what it was. North scooped him up in a hug.

"I will not keep you. I will be alright, you go to children now." he gently placed his friend back on the floor, "And you will tell none of other Guardians, yes?"

Sandy put on a mock serious face and crossed his heart.


	4. Jack Frost

Sandy was very much aware of his stalker. He had been aware since the boy in the shadows had started tailing him in Pittsburgh. Too busy to be bothered, Sandy had elected to ignore Jack until he had finished spreading dream sand and making sure none of the children, or particularly exhausted adults, had bad dreams.

He was perched on a telephone pole, pulling back a long arm of glistening gold from its path down the neighborhood street he was on. Then Jack decided to interrupt him.

"Hey, Sandy!"

Sandy turned around to face him with a bright smile. He liked having conversations with Jack. The mischievous boy was a lot of fun, even if he had to "speak" slowly for him to understand.

He formed a glowing hand that waved side to side as a greeting.

"How's the dream working?" Jack asked, dipping down with the wind to Sandy's eye-level and balancing on the telephone wire with his staff.

Sandy gave him a thumbs up, pointed at him, and formed a question mark.

"Me? Oh, you know, winter season needs snow and cold, 'specially out here. Um... hey, I was wondering if, uh, you could tell me something?"

Sandy made a set of numbers and a weight measurement.

"Huh? Oh, tons!" Jack grinned, "I get it. Okay. Well, it was something I wanted to ask about dreams."

Sandy fell forward onto a pillow of sand and floated in front of Jack. He put his short chin on his hands and propped himself up with his elbows. His teeny feet wiggled in the air with intrigue.

"Uh...well..." Jack stammered. His crystal blue eyes flitted from Sandy to the clouds, "Let's just say, hypothetically, that... maybe Bunny was having nightmares, would you fix it?"

Sandy shrugged and moved his hands to say, "depends." He peered at Jack for a moment. Then he formed the simple word, "yes."

"But... you just said that it depends on the dream, right?" Jack got a little more nervous, "Why would you and why wouldn't you?"

Sandy formed the word "it's" and a silhouette of Bunny. The images disintegrated and formed the word "not" and a sand sculpture of Jack. Lastly, the golden particles formed Bunny, a does-not-equal sign, and Jack.

Jack sighed, "I'm a pretty crappy liar, aren't I? Okay, yeah, I've been having... really weird... honestly, scary dreams. I skipped out on sleeping the past couple of nights."

That confession earned him a profound glare.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I already got an earful from the kangaroo," Jack rolled his eyes, "I'd asked him for sleeping pills before, but they didn't work. I figured, maybe you could-"

Before he could finish, Sandy had produced a vial of what looked like liquid, golden sparkles. He was holding it out for Jack to take with a knowing smile.

Jack gaped at it for a while, stuck in the middle of his sentence. He blinked at the bottle and then at Sandy. He accepted the gift hesitantly, as if it was going to disappear like all of the Sandman's constructions. It didn't and stayed solid in his cold hands.

"Th-thank you," he managed to squeak out.

"Of course,"

Jack snapped his eyes up immediately. He stared at the golden words above Sandy's head and at the little man himself. He sputtered in a little bit of shock.

"D...did...did y... did you just...?"

Sandy shrugged as the two words dissipated.

"You just spoke!" Jack exclaimed. He lost his balance and fell. Glittering sand caught him before he could be shattered into a million pieces on the pavement.

Barely registering the near-cataclysmic event, Jack called on the wind to lift him back up to the top of the telephone pole where Sandy had been when they began their conversation.

"You _can_ talk!" Jack stared at Sandy with wide eyes, "Who else knows this? Is this the first time you've spoken since you died? Was that a rude question? Never mind. Sandy, why have you never spoken before?!"

Sandy regarded him with a mildly irritated expression. He had his eyes halfway closed and his mouth set in a thin line. He formed large letters with his sand to spell out the phrase, "I didn't say anything, Jack. It was your imagination."

Jack read the words silently. His exuberance ceased and he reclined on his staff with a hint of disappointment.

"I heard a voice, though," he argued after some contemplation.

Sandy shrugged. A light bulb appeared that flickered off and on and then fizzled out, which expressed that he had no idea.

"Maybe I'm just too tired," Jack reasoned, "Need to sleep. With some of this." he pulled the small container of dream elixir and looked at it, "When do I take it?"

Sandy depicted a scene of Jack walking to a bed, sitting down on it, drinking the potion, and then standing up and walking around while a clock ticked above his head. The little, golden Jack paced around for an accelerated three hours before lying down and going to sleep.

"Take it at home, but it'll be three hours before it works?"

Sandy nodded.

"Right," Jack smiled up at him, "Thanks, Sandy, this means a lot. I'll let you get back to taking care of the kids."

He hopped off the pole and skated in the wind off to the east. Sandy watched him leave in a more zigzagged path than he normally traveled.

Sandy shook his head. At least Jack wasn't too stubborn to ask for help like some other people he knew. He circled back to the west side of the street and made sure the last house had enough good dreams to go around.


End file.
